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Camper
1 Restoration
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Photo 1-
This is how it looked before I started on it : It doesn't look too bad judging by the photos does it, but dont let this fool you, the rust was covered by a thick coat of primer that the previous owner brushed on, it was covering a multitude of sins that you will see on the following photos. |
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Photo 2
The guy who I am restoring the camper for, had a new front panel put on by a local garage a couple of months previous. It was o.k. but he didn't finish it off very well where he welded it to the pillars. |
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Photo 3 We nicknamed him smokey because of the hidious battleship gray, there is a clue to the real condition of this vehicle under all the gray paint. Do you see the rust streaks running down the whole side from the gutters down? |
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Photo 4
This particular restoration was an ex panel van, so someone had put windows into the side panels. As you can see when the glass and rubbers were taken out the edges were very badly rusted all the way round. This left me with no chioce but to replace the whole side panel, luckily there was a camper restorer on kamperchat who had the top halves of a panel van going begging as he only used the bottom halves of the panel and they were NOS panels too! So as both sides were completely rotten, I replaced both the top side panels, but they had to be modified as the panels were meant for a left hand drive. |
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Photo 5 It looks better already with the new panel welded in doesn't it? The owner of the van decided to leave the panel as it is without cutting in a new window, when you look at the finished photos, it looks quite good. A bit different I think. |
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Photo 6
This is what the cab floor looked like once I cut out all the rot, i think it's got a sort of Flitstones car look about it! |
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Photo 7 Again this van was done on a tight budget, so the owner couldn't afford to buy cab floor panels, so I got some offcut steel from my local enginnering works and fabricated this piece, much cheaper it is a bit awkward as it is not entierly flat, about two inches each side had to be bent up slightly to match the profile of the cab floor. As always seam seal all welded joints after they have been ground flat. |
