November update
Whew, its been a couple of months since I last updated. Trying to save some money for a new car so not a lot has been happening to the van. Whilst I was looking for extra work I got a little bit more of the door done.
Starting of with this.
I laid the door on a work bench that I had placed 2 bags of sand on to support the panel. Little bit of a closer up shot.
And on the inside.
I had thought about re-skinning the whole lower half of the door but settled on patching the bad bits instead. So I cut out the corner to gain access inside.
Then the other side.
Which let me see the strengthening piece inside the door which also needs replaced. Best to do this first. I used a bit of guesswork to imagine how the panel would have originally looked and made up a template.
Cut it out.
Few folds and shaping.
Then attached it to the old piece that was save-able.
I flipped it over and coiled up a strip of sheet to make a spacer for when the door hinges bolt back on.
New tabs welded in place to hold the hinge plate in with a bit of adjustment. I then welded that piece back on to the door.
The next piece was the inside door panel. Its a bit of an awkward panel and took me a while to figure a way to do it. I made up the flat pieces first then tapped the edge over a round former to give me a nice radius to match the original door.
I drilled a few holes so I could attach this panel to the previous inner repair piece and tacked it to the door.
Then the next piece was templated and cut out. I forgot to mention, the reason its so awkward to do is this part of the door is a compound curve, so it curves in both axis, like a sphere.
Drilled 3 holes for the hinge bolts and tacked it on.
The door now had enough strength in it to bolt back on to make sure the hinge would be in the right place.
Which it did, yippee. So, door back off and finish off the corner. Before I put the last piece in I had extended the inner panel inside and spot welded it to the bottom of the door for extra rigidity. Welded it all up.
Then the door went back on again ( I think I put it on and off about 50 times over the whole time of repairing it) so I could template for the outer door skin. I used some thin cardboard to make the template and some corrugated to mark the curve off the panel in both plains.
This was a bit tricky to do, I used the same technique as I used for dishing out the rear panel. I pretty much used a sandbag and a round headed hammer to knock a bit of shape into it then bent it over my knee, tubing etc.. Anything round to try and stretch a light compound curve into it. After a lot of dicking about I had it tacked in then welded and cleaned up.
Now all I need to do is the rear of the door, which can wait, because....
Shortly after that I got an email from a guy in the pre67 club. He was asking if I could copy a set of ramps he had found on the Internet for a cheaper price. The ramps he was talking about are made by
www.restorationramps.co.uk and they look like this.
I managed to get their measurements from the website, each ramp is 16" wide, 12 foot long and 26" tall. They didn't look very difficult to make, just time consuming so I agreed. I'd rather make these than gates and railings.
I started by getting all the metal I would need and cut them all to the right size.
Then making up the front box sections first. These also unbolt from the angled apart for ease of storage.
I drew on the floor how much of an angle I would need, then placed them on a chair to visualize it standing up.
Then I made up the other side.
Once I had completed the angled section I used that as my template to make another.
The next part was to cut 98 bits of angle for the treads. Very time consuming when I only have a chop-saw.
Halfway through my Mig welder decided it had had enough and conked out. My mig has been pretty good so far for the thinner sheet work I've been doing but I think something was up with it as thicker stuff just bamboozled it. I decided to splash out on a nice new Mig so I ordered a R-Tech mig180. I have been impressed by their Tig/Arc that I bought a few years ago so I had no qualms in ordering a Mig from them.
Whilst I was waiting on it I used my Arc to weld one of the ramps up. I also made up 4 posts to support the rear when its in the level position and a brace that acts as an adjustable jacking beam.
Once I got my new welder I finished the welding off, cleaned them up and gave them a coat of primer.
Then the next stage was to test them out. The restoration ramps say theirs can hold 2000Kg so I tried it with my 1900Kg Lexus. I was a bit nervous as there was no one else in he garage to guide me so I was being very cautious, I did record it on my tablet just in case something happened and I could send it to "you've been framed" to make some money out of it. Fortunately it went well.
The guy who got them was really happy and said they will be used to help restore his mk2 Zodiac, so we were both happy.
It had been about 6 weeks since I had done anything tot he van, I really want to get on with the engine swap so I had been looking on Ebay pretty much every day for a LS400 with LPG. I missed out on a couple and was thinking about something else when about 2 weeks ago I saw a nice, honest looking 1999 LS400, 105,000 miles, wee bit tatty bodywork but most importantly, it had LPG. The bad thing was its 300 miles away from me in Birmingham. Not something I could just pop over and have a look at. I contacted the seller and asked a few questions and I was pretty set on it. It was a bit over my budget but would be worth it on fuel savings alone. I asked one of my relatives if I could borrow a bit of cash off them and they agreed, so, I had the money. Now the gamble was how honest the seller had been.
Which brings me up to yesterday morning at 5:20am . I bought a plane ticket from Edinburgh to Birmingham, then 2 train tickets and the seller met me in the Lexus at the train station car park around 10:30am. We took it for a test drive and I checked everything over. I was really happy with it, it does have a few dings but over all its a great car. I bought it from the guy and drove the 300miles back home. Using LPG and sitting just slightly over the legal speed limit
on the motorway it cost me £45. Compared to my original Lexus that would probably have cost me atleast £100
The drive was ok, there's a slight wobble in the steering between 50-65 mph which I'm hoping is just the wheels needing balanced and the tracking done. It needs a good clean, inside and out. New drivers side indicator lens and a good service for the engine and LPG. It has a service history upto the previous owner, fortunately he only put 10,000 miles on it as he has never had the engine oil changed since he bough it 2 1/2 years ago.
Older and younger brother, 5 years apart.
I can now plan the engine swap. I'm going to have to wait another month I think. I cant take any holidays from work right now as winter is our busiest time of the year but were going to be closed over Christmas so I may ask for an extra week at the same time. Atleast it gives me a few weeks to plan it out and maybe get the rest of the drivers door finished.