T25 Campervan - Weldathon

neilsdavies

Ah that makes sense.

Ill be building the cu engine just because it's what I have. Like you say, I'm not looking for big horsepower, just something that will produce some decent torque and stay cool.
At 70bhp as standard there must be some easy gains without spending a lot.

I’d go plan A, there’s a lot welding on your roof and compound curves and distortion and ...

Yep, new roof cut would be easier - we scrapped an '86 due to the same sort of roof damage. Looks like that was a factory sunroof roof pressing though.

The bath sealer / silicone / curse word whatever may be making the current situation look far worse than what its is - I would have a clean up of it first to see the real extent of the work before making any decisions - I have repaired worse before today where a roof skin has simply not been available in any form - but from what I can see there is a fair number of repairs to go at - I would also pop the windscreen out and check the state of the roof aperture - again before deciding what route you take - either way you may require a few brave pills - buts all doable in the grand scheme of things

I get what your saying guys and if it was going to be a tin top van then I'd replace the whole roof. The reason for plan b is that the roof will never be seen again once the pop-top roof is on. So it doesn't matter if the roof warps a little. Even if I did fit an immaculate new roof I'd only be chopping a massive great hole in the middle anyway.

The majority of the roof is actually OK, the passenger side being better than the drivers side. The bathroom sealer makes it look worse than it is.
The windscreen is staying on for now as the van is open to the elements until I can get a roof on the carport. Once that's in place it will be stripped out.

I would rather not disturb the hundreds of spotwelds attaching the roof to the guttering as they are rust free and have done pretty well. By opening up a good seam and puddle welding into it, it could be more likely to rust in future.

The sides are easy enough to make panels for and the front corners with the compound curve can be sorted with a body chop from another van.

There is logic behind the madness!

The roof is a job that isn't going to be sorted immediately, there's other areas of rust I'll be dealing with first and I may well change my mind as the project progresses. I mean if a good roof turns close buy then maybe it'll be swapped. But I'm not going to be hiring a van to drive cross country to get one

I understand your approach to the roof. Makes sense to do it that way to me.

I can picture the old roof floating gently to earth and landing perfectly on its back as in the pic...kinda like one of those seed pods that whirls down to earth and lands ever so gently!



JP

I have been plodding along with this behind the scenes. Admittedly it's been slow progress but it's an expensive hobby.

After the roof came off the bus moved inside the garage. Bit of a tight squeeze!


A drivers door was acquired to check everything lined up and then some more rotten metalwork was removed


Front quarter panel and wheel arch panel acquired and the test fit looks promising.


There is however some crash damage behind the front scuttle that needs sorting before all this is welded in. So off it came




You can see here the extent of the distortion in the panel behind the scuttle.
Difference between passenger and drivers side




Some hammer and dolly work will be required to dress the damage and then there are various small areas of rust that will need cutting out and replacing.

More soon

Nice work well done. Extremely thorough.

I hadn’t really thought how a minor bump could be really involved to repair on a bus like this.