1979 Toyota Hiace RIO GRANDE CAMPER!

Love your camper! I'm currently doing similar body repairs to my Vauxhall Midi camper, although it will never be as cool as this. Keep up the good work.

EPIC!!!

thanks for the positive comment guys!

productive weekend! Vans up and running again. Refitted my old spot lights, fitted wheels, wired up tacho, did some boring mechanical stuff - adjust the brakes, refit heater box, fit new O-rings in the heater valve, finished the welding where the heater box goes. Probably some other stuff i forget.




wheels + tyres fit nice, i'm very pleased!

I'm up for a meet

camper meet would be great! Of course the best place to do it would be the RR gathering!

todays was a tat collecting mission, borrowed my old mans diesel skoda and a little trailer and headed north.

Nice 320mile round trip to collect a Celica 18r engine and a skoda boot full of other goodys. Celica gets a much better exhaust manifold and I've also got the exhaust down pipe which should hopfull liberate a few more bhp out of my existing engine.

Just because It was snowing I didnt stop work on the van!

carpentry stuff

A grommet has come adrift from the rear inner wing leaving a damp carpet, green chipboard and a musty smell


took the oportunity to replace the floor boards, and fit some hard wearing lino stuff in the leisure battery box. as well as running some extra speaker wires inder the floor.


N/S Rear wheel bearing was grumbling like a curse word

so out came the half shaft

New bearing fitted, used the 20ton press at work. Proper tools make life so much easier!

cleaned up and painted the brake back plate whiles i was at it.
Changed the diff oil as well with some fresh EP90.


Also I focused on inproving the slightly vauge steering, so new track rod ends (X4)


Found the idler arm had alot of movement In the bush so off that came, SuperPro list a polybush for this, I ordered one through a UK superpro dealer. Took 3 weeks to turn up presumably because it had to come from OZ.


knacker bush out

Cleaned up the shaft, new bush fitted and I replaced the rubber boot on the other end with a universal one from the motorfactors.


And what a transformation! Steering is much tighter now!

now where did I get too with this thing!

New handbrake cable! The old one was very rusty inside and very tight, I'd left it in old atf fluid for a couple of weeks and tried to get some life back in to it with a heat gun but no luck. Motorfactors got me a new one for pretty cheap
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Took the side window out to replace the completely knackered seals, annoyingly on removal of one of the windows it exploded in my hands! I can only assume the stainless steel strip down one side that holds a felt seal, had tried to straighten its self because of being removed from the tension of the steel window frame.
So I now have a lightweight lexan window!


After driving the van round for a few months the top end on the engine had developed an alarming knock under load. Much earlier in this thread (2009) when I first got the van i'd replaced the timing chains, lack of oil changes had accelerated the wear on the chains and the entire top end. I stripped down the cylinder head and the worn top end had become much more worn in the last 4000miles! Knocky noise was the cam bearings which I knew weren't great. Lucky I purcased the other engine a few months back. So I swapped the heads over.

Took a couple of pistons out and investigated the bottom end (all good!)


cylinder head off the other engine fitted, valve ground in, new stem seals, painted up and fitted


as the same time fitted the celica type manifold off the the engine, which looks alot less restrictive than the hiace item. So had to knock up an exhaust, a bit of hiace and bit of celica and a 45 degree bend from the motor factors



any who MOT on sat

cheers! This thread should show up the many pitfalls of buying and ancient camper van But I still like it so I shall persist

always a few on ebay

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vintage-1975-Toyota-Hiace-Campervan-/141001681266


www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Toyota-Hiace-Devon-Conversion-Campervan-/171071943780

Cheers Glad you like it! It should be at RRG15, although its currently in bits again. Which means I should really update this thread a bit..

So 2014, The van got used quite a bit about 2000miles! which is more than any other year i've had the van.

went to RRG14


Drove home from RRG the long way, (some where near iron bridge)


on top of the Peak District


North Norfolk



Then back home to Essex. I used the van for a month or so after RRG then I decided I should really look at a few more of the body work issues.
I've started to look at the rear door, i;d repaired the door bottom earlier in this thread, but my welding and fabrication has improved a bit since then So I wanted to have another crack at it. But the worst of my worries was the rear screen surround which had always looked rather frilly and wasn't going to get any better.

Rear door off glass out


as usual with this van, some one has been there before me!Lots of filler and odd little patches.


So I invested in one of these:


cut out the rot, made up some bits




I couldn't make this in one bit sadly, the metal folder at my work just isnt big enough!


Door bottom wasnt great, time to start again and do it hopefully alot better!


thats a bit better:



my da sanding set up


So thats about as far as i've got, i hoping to get some more done on the van no the days are getting longer.