Taking it back to the metal

Picked up my SWB T5 this weekend. In her previous life she provided the wheels for the Transport for London bus stop cleaners.

After a couple of months of web browsing (the T4 forum has been brilliant) its time to put theory into practise.

My first job was to strip everything out so she looked pretty much like she did when she left the factory. The rear was lined in chipboard (riveted in place) and the floor was stuck down with blobs of no more nails (damn that stuff), although heating it up with a hairdryer and using a scraper got rid of most of it. I'm hoping a thinner of some sort will do the rest. I've noticed some screw holes through the chassis and wheel arches too. There isn't really any rust so I just plan to Hammerite those and use a bit of liquid metal to fill the holes. On the other side I will seal with a bit of silicon, probably.

I have had some bonus finds too: The van had rear parking sensors retrofitted and a leisure battery under the passenger seat, which powered some lights and cigarette lighter sockets in the back. Hopefully I can reuse the sockets later in the build. The hardboard cards were also in good nick too. I can't decide whether I will carpet these or buy some 4 or 6mm ply and carpet them instead.

The van was stripped out in about 4 hours, but I have already made my first mistake (which I only realised next day). I naively believed the van had a split charge relay, therefore the starter battery would not go flat if I used the lights running off the leisure battery. Wrong! My eagerness to strip everything out meant I worked well after the sun went down, and in the morning when I went to move her she was dead as a dodo. The jump leads are now kept under the front passenger seat! It does mean my rather excessive 300amp BEP VSR will be fitted very soon. This model, which I got for a bargain on ebay, has a manual override so the leisure battery can actually be used to start the engine if the vehicle battery is flat. More to come on that later.

Besides removing the bulkhead frame, which requires a grinder and an 8mm spline head socket head to undo the seat belt catches, filling the few screw holes and giving her a good clean down she is almost as good as new(ish), and very red!

The kids dust pan and brush has come in very handy keeping everything tidy too!