Dez' 'fleet' thread. Another bl00dy transit!

I am thinking back, I think they might only have been for Tourneo in limited markets.

The wheelhouses etc  on the mk8 are  the same so they would fit with some trimming to the arch, there also seem to be aftermarket ones available for the mk7.

The main benefit is they protect from stone pecking which eventually eats away even the best underbody protection, lets the water in and then you get what you have been repairing, you can also soak behind them with cavity wax which gives another layer of protection and creeps into any joints which open up in use. (a chassis cab flexes quite a bit).

Thanks for that, I’ll take a look for some.
I agree stones breaching the sealant when fired as speed is the major issue here, so Plastic liners could be sensible in this application.

sometimes to amass the necessary fortunes to run cars like that you have to be a bit of a Jeremy Hunt, not always, but I've met a few

So with that side all welded, sealed and primed, I started refitting stuff. I do plan on painting the truck fully at some point, but I don’t have time to do it now, and given my facilities it’ll be a summer job (read- it’ll probably get done outside).

This ABS pump bracket tested me. I had to drill the top mount hole as the inner wing didn’t have it even though it has the recess for the bracket, and I didn’t notice until it was already welded in. Even then it was an utter nightmare to refit the bracket to the pump, do up the nuts, then manipulate it into place and get the bolts in. You can see by the scratched paint how I struggled. It looks easy to get to here but in reality it’s 3 feet into the engine bay down the side of the motor, right in the back corner by the firewall and underneath the header tank/fusebox/wiring loom.


Once that was on the bracket for the fusebox could be fitted, then the fusebox, the header tank that also partially bolts to the fusebox bracket, and the headlight and frame.
There’s a lot of bits under here that are different between mk6 and mk7, the mk7 uses an entirely different fusebox and loom setup that mounts to the inner wing which then puts the header tank in a different place so the tank and hoses are different, and the washer bottle neck is a different shape. You can swap the header tank bits for mk7, or drill one hole and it bolts up to the inner wing ok. I’ve stuck with all mk6 stuff for now.


To say it’s bits off at least 3 different vans all swapped onto a earlier van, it all aligns pretty nicely. By modern Ford standards anyways 😂
Everything has a ton of adjustment because of how these are thrown together expertly assembled…
This pic shows the added hole for the header tank mount. It also shows the front of the fuse box mount is now unsupported, I’ll add an adapter bracket for that later I think.


So with that side back together, you know what’s coming next. Jacked and blocked with the chassis rails set level again-


Then another small hole made. Note I’ve already cut out the entire inner wing and splash panel sections a while ago.


The rot on this side ran further back into the multi-layer section where the front rail meets the firewall, cab floor and inner wing areas, so that was all cut back and cleaned up, saving the bits for templates and noting the orders of the layers of construction as I picked it apart.


With two sides of the box section left, there was still enough left for me to attach the new chassis rail to, so with some measurements that was squared into place.



The pics here do a great job of making everything look far rustier than it actually is, everything was ground back to clean metal and rust inhibitor use on top afterwards, as well as me painting as much of the internal cavities as I could.

But this meant I could then work backwards from there to fill out the gaps to the rest of the rail and it’s supports.

Hi, I think it's an economic decision. Nearly all vans are commercially operated by companies which by and large have a service life of about five years and so their value is written down for tax purposes. Whereupon the company disposes of it and goes and buys another, so why would the manufacturer deter that by keeping it rust free and tempting the company to squeeze another couple of years out of it. In other words, built in obsolescence.

Colin

I heard the term planned obsolescence earlier and I think it's pervert, because it's mainly a matter of money.

It results in products seen as disposable consumables, when at least 75% is still pretty useful, but the rest is just not justifyable to repair or simply unavailable partswise. Think of washing machines or printers that shall be disposed the day after the guarantee expires.

I'm still waiting for the day, when money gets a planned obsolescence, and expires and disappears like the bonus points You get on consumer cards, so people stop trying to always make more money, they don't really need!

Just my two cents, not worth a discussion in Dez' great thread, please.

I think the whole value/obsolescence of modern commercial vehicles is interesting whilst also being pretty abhorrent, which with environmental concerns actually being something taken seriously by society rather than it just something the hippies bang on about, paints the manufacturers in a pretty bad light.

Designing (and often deliberately under-designing) vehicles based on a 5 year lifespan model is incredibly wasteful. Then the after sales support offered that is deliberately obstructive and expensive to prolonging that lifespan makes the whole situation worse. If you go to a main dealer parts are either mega expensive or they just won’t sell you them. It’s literally why the aftermarket exists. Some manufacturers are better than others in this respect, but I still don’t think any of them are falling over themselves to help you.

Personally I hate the whole ‘throw it away and get another’ consumerist model that is the norm now, I’ll keep anything going for as long and possible and always try to fix something before it’s replaced. I mean look at all the stuff I’ve fixed in this thread. That started out because my family wasn’t that flush growing up(not to mention they’re from Yorkshire so are tight) and my grandparents came from a generation where replacement was a last resort if thinks really couldn’t be fixed. Now it turns out I’m some eco warrior or something becuase I check if the fuse has gone before binning something and getting straight on Amazon for its replacement 🤷‍♂️

I actually kinda like the Idea of longer lasting platforms with swap-in upgradeable power plants, maybe even full modular construction so body types could be quickly changed. That would be cool.

So, I’ll now got to fill in that funny multi-layered complicated chassis junction area.

The first bit was the easiest, it was just an extension of the rail on one side, but on the other side it flared out to meet the rear rail part.
I had some leftover chassis rail which speeded things up, I just cut it and added a filler in and smoothed it out.


So that’s layer one.


Layer two is a massively complicated shape. It steps, sweeps and overlaps in every possible direction. I made it in 3 pieces, tacked them together with it clamped in situ, then took l it back off to finish weld and smooth.






And fitted.




Some of those welds tested my contortionist abilities! The inside was given a last die grind/wire wheel to get as clean as possible then some paint slapped inside whilst I made the last piece of the rail reconstruction-

Nice bit of square hole filing (after chain drilling) for the brake hose bracket clip.

Welded-


And ground-


The last bit in this corner was to add the bit back to the inner arch corner, that sort of acts as a splash panel for this area, but also ran up into the cab footwell corner. You can see above it’s been trimmed back and cleaned up, a section was made up and welded in-


Before a final grind back and tidy up of everything ready for sealer and paint.


Although there is another panel spot welds to the edge of this panel, it’s a logical place to break for sealer and paint for this area whilst I still have reasonable access inside. Once the other panel is on it’ll be difficult to reach.
So I did all that and er, didn’t take a picture of it 😂